‘Circle the wagons’

Saturday

It was a Monday, roughly a week after the 68-year-old visited the hospital’s emergency department in downtown Salina — dizzy, short of breath and in pain — and swiftly found himself in ICU.

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A fuzzy figure draped in yellow snared Chris Engelken’s attention as he awoke April 6, after several days on a ventilator.

"She was standing there, silent. I thought: ‘My God, it’s an angel. I must be in Heaven,’ " he recounted this past Tuesday while on quarantine in the confines of his Salina home.

"I woke up a little more, and she said ‘Congratulations.’" Engelken said of his early emergence from sedation in the intensive care unit at Salina Regional Health Center (SRHC).

He had just conquered COVID-19.

It was a Monday, roughly a week after the 68-year-old visited the hospital’s emergency department in downtown Salina — dizzy, short of breath and in pain — and swiftly found himself in ICU.

Now Engelken is eager to share his story and do what he can to educate others about the global pandemic.

"It really changes your perspective, not only on your life, but your afterlife. I had so many people praying for me and offering good thoughts," he said. "It really hits home, brings you closer to your creator."

It all started with some pain that Engelken surmised is not out of the ordinary for someone in their upper 60s.

He worked a normal shift March 18 and the next day helped a friend load personal items into a truck.

Next came a fever and mild vertigo (loss of balance, dizziness and a sensation of spinning) and some pain in the lower lungs during coughing spells.

"It wasn’t that bad starting out. I thought I must be catching a cold," he said. "I literally blew that off, but it just got worse."

Engelken had been complaining of illness for some time, said his son, Shawn Engelken, of Salina.

"I knew he was sick. I’d been checking on him. I told him to go the ER if it got any worse. On that Monday, (March 23) he broke down and called us."

Chris had been sleeping in his "easy chair" because being more upright offered him some relief and made it easier to rest.

"I stood up, got a huge bout of vertigo and fell over. I reached out to break my fall and broke the arm on my rocker," he said. "I said ‘That’s it.’ "

Chris called Shawn, who responded with his girlfriend, Honesty McBride.

They communicated by phone on the short drive to Chris’s house.

"Dad said himself that he feared it was coronavirus," Shawn said.

It would be days before he found out for sure.

When they arrived, Chris "looked like walking death," McBride said. "He was really gray and green and very disoriented. He had a lot of vertigo going on, and you could tell it."

Knowing the pandemic precautions, they sent Chris back into his home to grab a washcloth.

"We tried to distance as much as we could. He put the washcloth over his mouth and we rolled the windows down," McBride said. "When (Chris) got in the car, he said, ‘Man, this thing really messes with your mind.’ It was more like a mind trip than being ill."

Once at the ER, McBride went inside and grabbed Chris Engelken a mask.

"Everybody was dealing with it like it was a panic. They took proper precautions and got him into a room," Shawn Engelken said. "They took him into another room and I had some choice words for the nurse. I was nervous. I had to leave that area immediately.

"I was dejected. I didn’t like it at all."

That was their last contact with Shawn’s dad for several days.

"That’s when I met Dr. Justin Hanke," Chris Engelken said. "He pulled no punches, just straight-out told me: ‘We’re gonna intubate you and give you drugs. If we pull that tube out and it comes back, there’s nothing we can do.’ I tell you what, that gets your attention."

While the experience was worrisome, Chris Engelken had high praise for his health care at SRHC.

"They were monitoring me pretty heavy. My arms looked like a pin cushion because of all the blood tests and the IVs and stuff," he said. "Through it all, the level of care was just awesome. Dr. Hanke came in several times (and a nurse).

"That whole floor was sharp as heck. I sure owe them a huge debt."

The ICU medical director and intensivist, Hanke said Chris Engelken’s case was caught in time, and he benefited from not having other chronic conditions.

He was admitted to the hospital needing oxygen to help him breathe.

"That was concerning," Hanke said. "Within 24 hours, he was on 100% oxygen."

The strategy was straight-forward, he said, and the focus was Engelken’s lungs.

"With this virus, you need aggressive ventilation, supportive measures with mechanical techniques," Hanke said. "You basically try to keep the patient going as long as you can to let their lung injury recover."

There was some luck involved with Chris, the doctor added, "but for a 68-year-old guy, he’s extremely functional and mobile, and he’s somebody who did well," Hanke said. "He doesn’t have any chronic morbidity (risk factors), and his lung injury recovered."

Meanwhile, Shawn and Honesty were busy "circling the wagons," as his father put it.

With Chris being one of 13 siblings — spread all over the United States, one sister in England — and their 102-year-old mother in a nursing home in northeast Kansas, plus cousins, nieces, nephews and others — there was a lot to do.

Shawn also has a brother, Dustin Engelken, of Raleigh, N.C., and sister Tiffany Brown, of Lindsborg.

Some relatives work in health care, including Chris’s brother, a medical doctor in Topeka; a nephew is a pulmonologist in Washington state, and a sister who is a nurse in northeast Kansas, all of whom are dealing with COVID-19 in their work.

"Shawn helped me a lot on it," said McBride, who worked for a decade as a medical assistant, and understands the hospital lingo.

Most days, she and Shawn were updated over the phone by Hanke, and they passed on the news to family. For medical professionals in the clan, deeper details were requested, such as lab results and ventilator settings.

"It was almost a chain," McBride said. "It went to me and I updated, and we made sure between me, Tiffany and Dustin. We updated twice a day."

Also during that span, she and Shawn Engelken endured a 14-day quarantine.

Not having family to update face to face is different, Hanke said, but the iPads are helping to give loved ones a glimpse of what’s going on inside.

"I am trying to call families as much as I can," he said. "It’s really hard to talk about somebody being critically ill and only being able to do it over the phone. It’s definitely a new experience."

There were some positives to the situation, Shawn Engelken said, especially with regard to his father.

"I don’t mean to sound completely heartless, but actually, family members not being there probably helped my dad out more," he said. "With the videos through the Zoom app, he had limited exposure to us, and it gave him the will and the drive to kick that thing in the butt."

Coming from a large farm family, Shawn said his father "is a tough old man, who grew up when the farm equipment was the family."

Chris Engelken was embraced in Salina’s hospital, he said.

"The nurses that were in there were absolutely awesome, really patient," Shawn said. "As much as their lives were on the line, they were very calm and compassionate, very professional with my dad. Dr. Hanke was amazing."

Ditto that, his father said, speaking from experiences on the inside.

"Every time I rang the bell needing help, they had to come in and put all the (safety) garb on. That had to be a pain. They’re just awesome." Chris said. "Dr. Hanke’s bedside manner was calm and reassuring. He’s just a great doctor. I’ve never encountered somebody like that."

After several days of help from a ventilator, Chris improved, eventually enough to go home. He was first transferred from ICU to a room on the second floor, and remembered being self-conscious while catching some peculiar stares.

"There were people eyeballing me as I went by, like: ‘Who’s this guy? What’s he got?’ " Chris Engelken said.

With so much air being circulated, "It sounded like three or four air conditioners going. I didn’t sleep well there at all," he said.

It was on that Saturday when Chris Engelken learned coronavirus made him sick.

How it was contracted is not known.

"I could have caught it anywhere, but I was washing my hands and following the protocols," Chris Engelken said. "It’s a sneaky virus."

There are no guarantees that he won’t get the virus again.

"I would say he has a pretty significant degree of immunity. How long it will last, I don’t know," Hanke said. "During the pandemic, if he got it again, he would likely not have any, or very minimal, symptoms."

Chris Engelken said he would be available to donate his plasma "if possible" to COVID patients, if it proves to benefit others.

Chris is game to help however he can, and that includes talking about what’s learned.

"Starting out, I thought it was a big to-do about nothing," he said. "But that information was coming more and more out of China, about what was going on, and after actually catching COVID-19, it opens your eyes."

He urges all to follow the guidelines.

"Wash your hands 20 to 30 seconds at a time. Keep your distance. If you start feeling poorly, monitor yourself. Pay attention to your body," Chris Engelken said. "I really had a great support group from a big family, and I had prayers coming in, like telegrams from above.

"From my West Coast family, it was like a wave that came over the Rockies. I think it all just pulled me through."

A friend of a family member sent him a "prayer blanket from her church," and Chris Engelken it came in handy in the ICU.

He texted another to asked her to pray for him.

"Her response was amazing," he said. "I feel so lucky, blessed and humbled. It chokes me up to talk about it."

Shawn Engelken said his father did well in isolation and properly distanced himself.

"We have been calling to check on him, and if he needed something, we would just drop it off on the porch," Shawn said.

Neighbor Andy Harper has kept a close eye on Chris; mowed his lawn and aired up his truck tires.

"That’s what you do as a neighbor," said Harper, a Salina firefighter and emergency medical technician.

Shawn and other family and friends are anxious to get closer than six feet, when the time is right. The quarantine ended Friday afternoon.

"I might just go over there and razz him up a little bit. A hug will be there, obviously," Shawn said. "We may sit down and watch a movie with him, or get him out of the house and do something."

Now is the time to best the virus, Chris said, and get busy with new beginnings.

"I wasn’t the best Catholic," he said, "but I’m sure gonna try to be a better one."

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